Koningsplein webcam, Amsterdam

TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association) coordinates and carries out technical activities and provides a platform for discussion to encourage the development of a high-quality computer networking infrastructure for the European research and education community.

Location

The camera is mounted on the outside of our office, on the 4th floor. The office is in central Amsterdam above the Singel canal and the busy junction between the flower market (off-screen right) the roads that run between the shops, hotels, cinemas and restaurants at Leidseplein (bottom right corner) and the popular shopping areas of Spui (top left) and Kalverstraat (top centre). Check the Contact page for details and a photo of the office building. To be specific, the camera is located below the turret, a little to the right.

The webcam is undergoing maintenance and we hope to get it back online soon.

Technical details

Camera

The physical camera is an Axis Q1755 surveillance camera. This model is able to deliver up to 1080i H.264 compressed RTSP streams. The camera has an onboard microphone, but we still use the external microphones we used in the past because they seem to offer better quality. You can hear the sounds of the street, the trams, people talking, etc. The camera is a fixed model, which means that there is only one viewing angle possible. It is not possible to move the camera.

FAQ

The quality is bad. I thought it was HD? Correct, but the YouTube player starts with low resolution. Click the little cog icon to view a better quality stream.

The sound is mono. The current set-up does not support stereo sound.

The image is too far zoomed in/out. There is no "best" zoom level for everyone. Live with it.

The image is too light/dark. If we manually set brightness/contrast/etc then it works during daytime, but not at night. And the other way around. Currently the camera is set to auto-adjust, which is the best option ('sucks the least').